“And she just turned pink with joy. She was an awful nice little gal. Only she was so jam-full of knowledge that it was hard for her to understand things.
“Having put up this job on myself, I went to our storekeep’ and called for my time. I knew I’d need bright lights and excitement for a while. I begun to feel already that a chew wouldn’t go bad.
“There was the storekeep’ gazin’ fixedly at a book; his lips was movin’, but he seemed in a kind of rapture. When I hollered to him, he jumped all over and barked at me like a dog. At the same time he grabbed up a cigareet, stuck it in his mouth, took it out, looked at it and fired it down again.
“A light broke on me. ‘So she got you, too?’ says I.
“‘Hooppitty Hoppitty Hippitty Yer-hoop!’ says he. ‘That’s just what she’s done! I’m three days out. Not a smell of smoke in three days! My soul has gone away and won’t have any more truck with me. I don’t know who I am, nor why. I’ve been trying for an hour to find out how much three and two make. Take your money and leave me to my fate.’
“With this picture in my mind I broke for town. Half-way there I was chawin’ a latigo-strap like a wolf. When I hit the street, I jumped through the drug-store door.
“‘What you got for a man that’s quit chewin’?’ I gasps to the boss.
“‘Franky Frenchman’s Fool-Killer,’ says he—and with that he turns his head and expectorates satisfactorily into the spittoon.
“Seeing him, I near died of a broken heart.
“‘The next crack will be at your expense,’ I told him. ‘You hike out somethin’ for my case,’ I says. He shoved me out a package, just like that.”